Private and Secure PirateBox is designed to be private and secure. No logins are required and no user data is logged. Users remain completely anonymous – the system is purposely not connected to the Internet in order to subvert tracking and preserve user privacy.

The perfect use for all those old "underpowered" laptops gathering dust in closets. Plug it in, turn it on, walk away...

PirateBox - Portable FLOSS file sharing network

Stealthing it as a WAP is brilliant. They're so ubiquitous these days. How many people would ever notice that there's suddenly one additional WAP in the room they're sitting in?

I'd personally prefer mine, however, with a slice of Raspberry Pi. Boxed up and glued to some out of the way surface (ideally looking like it belonged there ) - and preferably with access to a solar power source. It would be the ultimate manifestation of an affordable "set & abandon in place" communications network! "Green" too.

And as an extra bonus, it would provide hours of additional entertainment value for people who get to watch the "find the unauthorized router/file server" folks show up and look for it. Hee-hee!

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Note: Just for the record, I don't condone nor excuse people using this technology in order to "share" digital assets for which they don't have a legal right. I do, however, object to the notion (in some quarters) that digital communications are somehow 'different' from every other form of human communication - and are therefor not entitled to protection under existing constitutional rules of free speech. Technology like this is a small bit of insurance when it comes to that.

^I do. But the BlueBox was used to generate operator tones that would allow you place calls or access long distance without going through a "Ma Bell" operator and paying for a call. There were also other colored boxes (including the much feared by telco security Vermilion+Gold box combination punch) that did "other" things too. Please don't ask how I know that.

This is a little more like the Fido BBS system in that it allows communications and file sharing between users without the communications being mediated or provided by a 3rd party since they're basically built into an automated host device.

I'm waiting to see if they eventually create a mechanism to mesh all these little babies together (very doable btw) and effectively create a localized broadband channel that doesn't use the telephone system or state/corporate sponsored internet/WAN backbone.

Now that would be a true 'pirate' network. Tom Jennings (self-proclaimed anarchist and FidoNet's creator) would have loved it.